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Monday, 13 January 2014

Summing up … first attempt

So there have been three church-free Sundays since the end
of my year of churchgoing. On the first one I worked (deadlines and bad
planning having scrubbed out any possibility of “fun” over Christmas and the
New Year), and on the second and third I met up with a friend to visit the
Botanic Gardens and then the National Museum.

And no, I’m not missing going to church.

Trying to sum up what I’ve learned in the past year is taking
longer than I’d thought. No definite conclusions …
not yet, anyway. Except perhaps this one … that there will be no more churches.
I’ve been there and done that, and seen more varieties of this crazy thing
called Christianity than I bet a lot of people could claim to have experienced.
And there’s nothing there for me. If I want music, I’ll go to a concert or
listen to a CD. If I want a lesson, I’ll read it from a book. If I want the intemperate
opinions of social conservatives, I’ll read the Daily Mail. Actually, no, I don’t
think I could stomach that. And if I want to pray or read the bible, I don’t
need to sit in a strangely decorated building in order to do that.

All the Jesus stuff needs more mulling over. There are big
questions about exactly how much I can bring myself to believe, and as you
might have worked out by now the term arch-sceptic might just about begin to
describe my approach to most faith claims.

20 comments:

Thank you for being so honest. Thank you for sharing your views on the worship you've experienced this year. And thank you for completing your self-imposed challenge. It's been interesting reading and I'll miss your regular postings. Any chance that you'll add to this from time to time?

You've decided that formal church isn't for you at this time, but keep an open mind. You have a great gift of questioning and challenging what you've encountered, as well as a wonderful writing style. God isn't constrained by church walls and appears at unexpected times and places. You might have given up on God for now, but he hasn't given up on you!

I'd like to echo the sentiments above. I've really enjoyed reading your blog over the last year. It's been refreshing and informative and very well written. I've also found it useful in terms of questioning my own reasons for not going to church. I admire your determination in going to many different places of worship and having the perseverance in your project - not to mention the penance of hard church pews and uncomfortable plastic chairs.

Going forward, how would you describe yourself now when it comes to religion? Agnostic or atheist?

How would I describe myself now? It's difficult to say. I don't think I'd go so far as to claim to be an atheist ... although isn't everyone an atheist in respect of gods other than their own? ... because I couldn't set about proving that there is no god. But agnosticism has a kind of yes/but sitting-on-the-fence connotation that I'm not quite comfortable with either. The jury is still out.

Don't beat yourself up. Equality of belief, equality in anything, seems to be such a radical concept among us mortals that going around showing kindness and respect to most human beans is quite enough (me thinks). I do, however, reserve the right to call a fool (a raspberry fool).

Just to clarify. What I was trying to say is that equality of belief (or disbelief) in the context of deities seems to be a radical proposal here on earth. It is surely enough for non-believers to start with the premise that strangers are equal and deserves kindness and respect (unless they turn out to possess some challenging personality traits).

And of course, I haven't done anything more about the summing up yet. I've spent a month thinking about it, and trying not to think about it, and enjoying the fact that I have my Sundays back again ... not that anyone was forcing me to go to all those churches, of course.

I agree with what Rev Hutton said (10 August 2013) in his sermon about how he was shocked that a fellow FP Minister's daughter supported the same-sex marriage billwhen it went through the House of Commons! I actually know the female MP concerned and I doubt if her father was alive she would have voted the way she did!!!

Well, of course, I don't know what Rev Hutton said in his sermon on 10 August 2013, which was a Saturday, but perhaps they had a Saturday service that weekend. But I suspect you are referring to my post about his sermon on 10 February 2013.

We can only speculate as to how the MP would have voted if her father was still alive. I would like to think that MPs represent their constituents and vote as their conscience dictates.

Yes I was referring to ur 10 February 2013 post. I realse I had got the date of ur blog wrong If u watch the Parliament live on tv u r likely to see the female MP concerned in a trouser suit. NOW when her father was alive and she attended FP services NOT ONCE did she EVER DARE TO wear TROUSERS WHATSOEVER, only skirts!!!!! SADLY TIMES HAVE changed

I am not entirely ignorant of the FP tradition, and I understand that you take Deuteronomy 22:5 seriously. But if the MP in question wants to wear trousers, that's not something that my little blog can help you change.

Thanks. Glad you enjoy the blog, but the year of church visiting is over, so there will be no more regular Sunday reports. I did think about including non-Christian places of worship, but it pretty soon became clear that I would have my work cut out just to get round a representative sample of Christian ones.

Maybe the mosques, synagogues and temples could be the focus of a new project, but I'd keep it separate from this one.